added by Tanuj · updated 2y ago
Be suspicious of stories | Tyler Cowen | TEDxMidAtlantic
- Do I really have to follow some kind of narrative? Can't I just live? So be more with comfortable with messy. Be more comfortable with agnostic, and I mean this about the things that make you feel good.
from Be suspicious of stories | Tyler Cowen | TEDxMidAtlantic by Tyler Cowen
Tanuj added 2y ago
- This idea of hovering, of epistemological hovering, and messiness, and incompleteness, and not everything ties up into a neat bow, and you're really not on a journey here. You're here for some messy reason or reasons, and maybe you don't know what it is, and maybe I don't know what it is!
from Be suspicious of stories | Tyler Cowen | TEDxMidAtlantic by Tyler Cowen
Tanuj added 2y ago
- Again, we're imposing order on the mess we observe, and it's taking the same patterns, and when something is in the form of a story, often we remember it when we shouldn't.
from Be suspicious of stories | Tyler Cowen | TEDxMidAtlantic by Tyler Cowen
Tanuj added 2y ago
- First, narratives tend to be too simple. The point of a narrative is to strip it way, not just into 18 minutes, but most narratives you could present in a sentence or two. So when you strip away detail, you tend to tell stories in terms of good vs. evil, whether it's a story about your own life or a story about politics. Now, some things actually a... See more
from Be suspicious of stories | Tyler Cowen | TEDxMidAtlantic by Tyler Cowen
Tanuj added 2y ago
- Pull back and say, "What are the messages, and what are the stories that no one has an incentive to tell?" and start telling yourself those, and see if any of your decisions change. That's one simple way - you can never get out of the pattern of thinking in terms of stories, but you can improve the extent to which you think in stories and make some... See more
from Be suspicious of stories | Tyler Cowen | TEDxMidAtlantic by Tyler Cowen
Tanuj added 2y ago
- When we hear stories, should we be more suspicious? and what kind of stories should we be suspicious of? Again, I'm telling you it's the stories that you like the most, that you find the most rewarding, the most inspiring. The stories that don't focus on opportunity cost, or the complex, unintended consequences of human action, because that very of... See more
from Be suspicious of stories | Tyler Cowen | TEDxMidAtlantic by Tyler Cowen
Tanuj added 2y ago
- As a good rule of thumb, "When I hear a story, when should I be especially suspicious?" If you hear a story and you think, "Wow, that would make a great movie!" That's when the "uh-oh" reaction should pop in a bit more, and you should start thinking more in terms of how the whole thing is maybe a bit of a mess.
from Be suspicious of stories | Tyler Cowen | TEDxMidAtlantic by Tyler Cowen
Tanuj added 2y ago
- You can't make a movie and say, "It was all a big accident." No, it has to be a conspiracy, people plotting together, because a story is about intention. A story is not about spontaneous order or complex human institutions which are the product of human action but not of human design. No, a story is about evil people plotting together. So you hear ... See more
from Be suspicious of stories | Tyler Cowen | TEDxMidAtlantic by Tyler Cowen
Tanuj added 2y ago
- I'm really not sure, and I'm not here to tell you to burn your DVD player and throw out your Tolstoy. To think in terms of stories is fundamentally human. There's a Gabriel García Márquez memoir, Living to Tell the Tale, that we use stories to make sense of what we've done, to give meaning to our lives, to establish connections with other people. N... See more
from Be suspicious of stories | Tyler Cowen | TEDxMidAtlantic by Tyler Cowen
Tanuj added 2y ago